It's Friday, Argh!

Yes, Sadly I made a pirate bento last week and today happens to be "Talk like a pirate day". Oh why didn't I realize? :O

Anyway, I didn't get a picture of my nice bento this week because I was running out the door whilst packing. So here are two summer bentos.

Backlogged bento #50: (mine)

I had: Tamagoyaki(Japanese rolled omelet), sushi rolls(Just rice and furikake in seaweed.), Sugar snap peas, edamame, Mr. Tomato stuffed with cream cheese and parsley, gyoza(dumplings) and ginger scallops.

This was a massive feast for a lunch and I didn't quite finish all of it. But it was delicious! I packed it in one of the three tiers of my Jyubaku, purchased at Daiso for $4.

Bento #51:(Mine)

Top tier: gyoza, broccoli beef, chow mein, orange chicken, musroom chicken.
Bottom tier: Fried and steamed rice.
Side dish: Blueberries and musk melon (Cantaloupe)

This was an easy bento. Leftovers from Pandaexpress...or safeway..I can't remember-dinner And just cut up the fruit in the morning. Packed in a two tiered Clickety Click Mink the Monkey box and 260ml Pink "Comment vas-tu?" side dish.

Phew! Glad I got on here. I just made a trip up to Daiso and H Mart and came back with lots of goodies for my Bentoswap partners. I love seeing all the new things at Daiso every time I go there. :D

I'm getting new bento things in the mail from Ichiban kan and swaps so I'll be sure to try them out with new bentoing! Toodles!

~Kaits

Long Delay!

I can't believe how I've been neglecting my poor bento blog. But as I said, I have been making bentos. I think I'm going to just update once a week for now and maybe every now and then put up another too. But for now, let's just expect to see an entry on Friday night with the week's highlight bentos. :)

(I guess I'll still number them even though I've already made well over a hundred.)

Bento #48 (Mine) ARGH!
Here's the breakdown: Hunk of brie, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, quail eggs, and onigiri filled with smoked/peppered salmon with nori faces. There's also some red leaf lettuce around the edges to make it less green. >.>

Backlogged bento #49: (Mine) Chirashi sushi!

(let's see if I remember what's in this. XD) On the left: Blueberries and cheese wheel. Right: Rice with shrimp, avacado, cucumber and hard boiled egg shaped like a car and cut in half.

Sakura Festival Bento

This weekend was the Seattle Cherry blossom festival. My parents took my brothers, my friend and I. It was really fun! I loved talking with so many sweet Japanese women. And all the paintings and kimonos were really lovely. Because it was such a special occasion it called for a special bento in a new Jyubako box.


Top tier: Red leaf lettuce,strawberries, apple rabbits, an orange, and sakura carrot slices.
Middle tier: Sakura sushi, edemame wontons(recipe coming), sakura mochi, and sakura carrot slices.
Bottom tier: Cheddar and pepperjack cheese cubes,red leaf lettuce, hard boiled quail eggs, radishes, naruto maki, pickled ginger, wasabi, and more sakura carrot slices.

This bento was really fun to put together. It probably took me 2 1/2 hours in total. I made the sushi and wontons the night before and the sakura mochi were bought at Uwajimiya in Bellevue.
I am so amazed with how the sakura sushi came out. I have a book about making Hana sushi and this was my first time actually trying it out. When I cut into the roll I let out an "ooh!" as I saw the pretty flowers. They're not incredible, but they look somewhat like flowers so I'm pleased. Sadly, we couldn't find a cherry tree near Seattle center to eat under, (The weather wasn't that great anyway.) so we didn't have a real Hanami picnic, but we did have a nice time. I wish we could've gone to all three days of the festival.

Real Bento

After waking up late today I rushed around the kitchen trying to find something to pack for lunch. Cheese cubes, a pita, 2 hard boiled eggs and some cucumber slices went into a box for Mom, Matt and I to share as we headed for the door. We get to work and what does mom say? "I don't think that'll feed all of us. Let's get bento for lunch." Oh bliss!


Our real bento: mixed tempura, gyoza, california rolls, salad and teriyaki chicken on rice. What could be better on a rainy day? :D

The Holiday Approacheth

Since we'll have to cook so much food tomorrow and Thursday I got a head start on my sushi tray tonight. And you know what that means: More pictures! :D

I don't have a musubi press, but I found a really easy way to make spam musubi without one. First I cut the spam block in half and then cut it into strips. I put those in the marinade while I shaped the rice:


After that I took the marinaded spam and fried it on med heat for a few minutes. It doesn't take long:


Then simply assembled them:


And bagged them up with the inarizushi I also made:


All of this probably took me 1 1/2-2 hours.(I ended up with about 40 musubi and 20 inarizushi) And we still have to make Thanksgiving dinner. Blech. I'm sick of cooking. But I still made Josh a lunch because I am a nice sister. :P

Bento #30 (Josh's)


Mixed greens with cranberries and almonds, leftover inarizushi rice, dried apples and apricots with a bottle of salad dressing, carrot sticks, grape tomatos and a baby banana.

I put an antibacterial sheet over the rice because it has a tendincy to "hop" into other parts of the container.

Sushi Bento

Took a trip to Daiso and H mart today with mom and picked up lots of goodies. She's employed me to make a sushi plate for Thanksgiving. She really enjoys Asian stuff now and we're both learing a lot about Japanese culture. I'm reading this book aloud in the car. It's really charming and fasinating. I highly reccomend it for anyone who's interested in Japanese food. speaking of Japanese food...(see what I did there. Oh, so clever. :P)

Bento #28 (Josh)


clockwise from top left: Vegetable maki from H mart, homemade spam musubi, munster cheese, container of ranch dressing, white bread, cutie (clementine) orange, baby banana, walnut pancake, grape tomatos, and celery and carrot sticks. Phew...a lot of ingredients. I made Dad bento too but the only difference was some umeboshi (pickled plums) instead of bread.

Easy, easy lunches. I made a large batch of Spam musubi this week and froze them. Just tossed them in the microwave for a minute and they were perfect. They're so easy to make. I don't have a musubi press yet, so I used my onigiri mold and cut the Spam smaller. I got the recipe from www.cookingcute.com

One more thing. Check out my photos from our trip to the Federal Way bonsai collection today. More photos to come soon. http://www.flickr.com/photos/16063815@N08/sets/72157603241039666/

Skipping some

I haven't had a chance to update in a while and I'm not going to post 2 weeks worth of bentos here tonight so we'll just go with my favorites. (Both of Josh's lunches here are Vegetarian.)

Josh recently bought a thermal lunch box near the hispanic food at Winco that I jokingly call his "Ms. Bento". :D But seriously it has lots of space and mostly keeps the food warm. Not bad for $9.

Bento #12 (Josh)


Left:Homemade california rolls and green tea marshmallow. Middle:Instant udon soup. Right:Napa cabbage, mushrooms and cucumbers for the soup.

Bento #15 (Me and Mom)


This picture is kinda funny because I got really hungry and started eating and then I was like. Oops, forgot to take a photo. It was kind of annoying because it looked really nice when it was full. :(

Roast beef and cheddar on dinner rolls, cucumber wall and homemade california rolls.
Slightly pictured: Wheat thins, cheese cubes and green tea marshmallows.

Bento #16 (Josh)

Left: Avacado and cucumber stuffed onigiri and button mushrooms. Middle: cucumbers, cheese, avacado and hard boiled eggs. Right: Wheat thins and dried apple rings.

Mr. Face was fun to make! ^_^